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This is the official blog of Northern Arizona slam poet Christopher Fox Graham. Begun in 2002, and transferred to blogspot in 2006, FoxTheBlog has recorded more than 670,000 hits since 2009. This blog cover's Graham's poetry, the Arizona poetry slam community and offers tips for slam poets from sources around the Internet. Read CFG's full biography here. Looking for just that one poem? You know the one ... click here to find it.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

"The New Material" by Mikel Weisser

"The New Material"By Mikel Weisser, of Kingman

Written Sept. 7, 2000,read at the Sedona Poetry Slamon Saturday, March 20

Last nightI dreamt a group of scientists announced the development of a new material,one that was all style and no substance.Odorless, colorless, tasteless,each of those things and yet none.All style and no substance,the implications were immense.

Immediately an investigation was begun to establish the practical applications.I was called on to be part of the team installed to exploitthe unlimited possibilities of a material that wasall style and no substance.And though I knew there were several of us on the teamI never saw anyone else’s face.

Of course, at first, we worked to apply the new material to its most logical application:advertising.It was the breakthrough we’d all been waiting for.All style, no substance.We could make a burger that glistened on the screen and touched the eternal longing to be filled,yet left no cholesterol or mustard stain,a car that felt as powerful as a five foot penis,yet would not pollute nor deposit road kill,a blond to make you buy diamonds and feel desiredyet offered no morning after after taste of age.

We sold cities to country folk, pastoral scenes to subway dwellersand no one had to leave their one place to be the other,for it was just a matter of style, not substance.We sold intelligence to foolsand ignorance to the blissedyet neither was stuck with the sense of responsibilities therein implied,for it was merely a matter of style, not substance.We sold cyber-sex to the celibate, strength to the weakand non-dairy low-fat whipped topping to those who felt unadorned.We dressed it up as everything, and it was loved by everyone,and all of them clamored for more, more, moreand we gave it and gave it, and gave,and it was never too much,because it was all style and no substance.

So we tried to apply it in musicSize 4 singers in size 14 jeans wrapped their tonsils ’round it and poked out their belly buttons with pride.Booming thugs puffed up their chests and clutched their 9s as if it were their crotches and bellowed how the material embodied their absolute essence without even requiring them to say “motherfucker,” as they swigged on their gin and juice.Razor edged haircuts moshed each other into angst ridden pulp to vie for the honor of hammering home its three chords.

We tried it everywhere and soon it was everything.All style and no substance, all style and no substance.It was the mantra of our century.It was at last a voice of reason.And as I kept saying “we” I knew I kept knowing “I..”I ogled the material, and coveted it, and felt shamed before its truth.I praised it, I lusted it, I worshiped its freedom from failure, its purity beyond judgment.

Slowly and slowly I crowded the others out;slowly and slowly I embraced and embodied the material.Always to be in fashion, never to be found lacking.All style and no substance,always to feel my full fat face and never my emptying soul.All style and no substance,Slowly and slowly the institute faded,and the world faded and eventually even the material faded and there was just me:all style and no substance,Just me and my mirror, all style and no substance.just me and ever death closing in from the one side,just me and ever life slinking off in the other.All style and no substance,

Just me and the mirror, all style and no substance,all style and no substance.Just me and I cried and I reached and I woke—

and as I rose in my terrors I knew that that dream was truth,for there I was in my mirror still.

CFG the slam poet

Fox the Poet

Christopher Fox Grahamis a Montana-born boy raised in Arizona to be a poet, artist, and singer with unending wanderlust. He's fascinated with art and other shiny things, a good story will keep him captivated and silent as he soaks you in.

In truth, he is good at only three things: using language, kissing, and driving.

He has performed for MTV and on The Travel Channel's "Your Travel Guide" episode of Sedona. Aside from winning more than 100 poetry slams, he's published four books of poetry, most recently The Opposite of Camouflage, and won the 2012 Dylan Thomas Award for Excellence in the Written and Spoken Word.

A slam poet since 2001, he currently hosts the bimonthly Sedona Poetry Slam in West Sedona.

For nearly four years, he was the senior Copy Editor of the Sedona Red Rock News, and an arts reporter and a columnist. He wrote a weekly column "Sedona Underground," about the city's art scene. After leaving in May 2008, he was asked to return as Assistant Managing Editor in October 2009. He was promoted to News Editor in April 2012 and in August 2012 was promoted to Managing Editor, overseeing the Sedona Red Rock News,The Camp Verde Journal, Cottonwood Journal Extra, The Scene and The Village View.

He has won numerous personal and editorial newsroom awards from the Arizona Newspapers Association, including three awards for Best Headline.

He was the managing editor of Kudos, a weekly arts and entertainment publication of the Verde Independent. He was also managing editor of The Villager, a weekly news publication in the Village of Oak Creek.

He is one the six coordinators of GumptionFest a kickass, annual, one-day grassroots arts festival held in Sedona, this year in September. More than 100 artists and bands exhibit their work for free to more than 1,200 people.

In 2005, he founded the Sedona Poetry Open Mic, which he hosted biweekly at Java Love Cafe on second and fourth Tuesdays until 2012. A former venue included Random Acts of Coffee, in Sedona, which closed in June 2005. The venue named a drink after him which one can order an various coffeehouses in Sedona. The "Topher": A large soy chai with two (or three) shots of espresso. Serve iced or hot. He was member of the city of Sedona Child and Youth Commission for two years and chairman for another two years before the commission was dissolved in 2008.

He has been unofficially named "The Voice of the Underground," in Sedona for his column "Sedona Underground" that appeared every Friday in The Scene. for more than three years, featuring more than 150 artists.

He won the 2004 NORAZ Poets Grand Slam, the 2005 Arizona All-Star Poetry Slam, and was a member of the 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2012 and 2013 Flagstaff National Poetry Slam Teams. He was also a National Poetry Slam bout manager in 2003, venue manager in 2011, and Sedona Slammaster in 2012, 2013 and 2014, sponsoring the city's first three Sedona National Poetry Slam Teams.

He believes that all slam poets are Jedis.

He has been thrown out of six movie theaters, 18 bars, a Las Vegas nightclub with his girlfriend, a public pool, two malls, four golf courses, one bowling alley, five dorms, one airport, one pet store, a now-defunct nonprofit poetry organization ... and Canada. Seriously.